My son (clarinet) asked if perfect pitch can be trained. I said no. Then I read the studies — and built him a trainer.
My son is learning the clarinet. One day he asked me whether you can train perfect pitch — he wanted to be able to do it too. I told him no, you're either born with it or you're not.
Then I actually looked it up, and I was wrong, at least partly. Two studies changed my mind: Van Hedger et al. (PLOS ONE, 2019) had adults train for about 8 weeks, and some of them reached genuine absolute-pitch performance and kept it months later. Wong et al. (Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 2020) trained adults for 12–40 hours, starting with three notes and slowly adding more up to all twelve; a minority (about one in seven in their preprint) ended up naming all 12 notes at 90%+. So: possible, for some, with a lot of practice. Not a miracle.
So I built him an app that starts the way Wong et al. trained people: three notes first, more only once you're accurate. You hear a note, you tap the note.
The newest update fixes something that bugged me: real pianos are stretch-tuned, the top octave sits up to ~35 cents sharp because that sounds right in music. For a pitch trainer that's wrong. The app now uses a real recorded grand (the free Salamander Grand, a Yamaha C5) with every one of the 60 notes retuned to exact A4 = 440 Hz, all within ±1.1 cents, measured. Before, it was a synthesized tone that sounded like a test signal.
What else it does: nine levels, from three notes with color hints up to chords and melodies. A "Weak Notes" mode drills the pitch classes you keep missing, and since the last update a wrong answer plays your note and then the right one, so you hear the difference instead of just seeing red.
The onboarding says what I learned, no more: full absolute pitch is mostly a childhood thing, but adults can measurably improve, and some get very far. I'd rather undersell that than promise a miracle.
It's iOS only, free to start; the higher levels are a one-time purchase (on sale until Oct 31). Link in the comments. I also have 20 free codes for the full version: leave a comment and I'll DM you one.
Happy to hear what training approach worked for you — and if anyone has perfect pitch, I'd genuinely like to know whether the piano sounds right to you.
(I'm not a native speaker, so I had AI help with the English. The story and the app are mine.)
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6762354184?pt=117720297&ct=reddit-perfectpitch&mt=8